Here, you can find out what’s trending, learn from industry innovators, check out fascinating smart maps, and stay informed with topical tech talk.

Visit our new blog regularly, or even better, subscribe to receive updates (you can do this at the bottom of any post), and let us tell you when the best articles are live.

And if you want to reference any of our old content, don’t worry – you can still access this blog for the next few months.

Thanks for stopping by. We hope you enjoy our new site!

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/our-blog-has-moved-address/feed/0bdoyleesriThe best of the Esri UC – brought Down Underhttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/the-best-of-the-esri-uc-brought-down-under/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/the-best-of-the-esri-uc-brought-down-under/#respondMon, 20 Jun 2016 05:31:25 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4790What if you could experience the world’s largest geospatial event – the Esri User Conference – without needing to travel to San Diego, or watch hours of footage online?

Better yet – what if information on the latest ArcGIS advancements was delivered in an Australian context, with local experts providing live commentary and answering all your questions?

Well, we have some good news for you…

We are bringing the best bits of the Esri UC Down Under – hand-selecting the highlights to share with you at cinema screenings in Melbourne and Perth on Friday 1 July.

Hosted by Esri Australia’s leading technical minds – with Esri Founder and President Jack Dangermond’s inspiring keynote shown on the big screen – the half-day UC Cinema Experience gives you the opportunity to:

Get an Australian-first scoop on Esri’s ArcGIS roadmap for the future and Jack’s exciting plans for the platform

Learn about the latest desktop, server and mobile software updates, and how the functionality in new apps like ArcGIS Earth and Photo Survey can benefit you

Hear about the organisations succeeding with Web GIS, and take away practical tips from their workplace reinventions

Talk one-on-one with our ArcGIS technical experts and connect with your local GIS peers in a relaxed, social setting

This is one of the most unique GIS experiences to ever take place in Australia, but don’t just take our word for it.

Be part of this never-to-be-repeated event and put your organisation in prime position to take full advantage of this new era in ArcGIS.

UC Cinema Experience screenings are taking place in Melbourne and Perth on Friday 1 July. Secure your seat today and be one of the first people in Australia to see what’s planned for the ArcGIS platform over the next 12 months.

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/the-best-of-the-esri-uc-brought-down-under/feed/0Banner_Jack Image_EDM (updated)bdoyleesriFive minutes with an Esri Australia trainer – Angus Hooperhttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/spend-five-minutes-with-angus-hooper/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/spend-five-minutes-with-angus-hooper/#respondTue, 31 May 2016 02:56:53 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4735Take a moment to get to know one of the stars in our training team.

What are you responsible for?

In my role as a consultant within Customer Care at Esri Australia, I work to ensure our clients are learning best practise to help leverage GIS in their business processes. I also work within the technical support space on topics such as ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Online, Collector for ArcGIS and Python.

What do you love most about your job?

Engaging with a passionate client who is pushing the boundary of what GIS can do and how their team or organisation can get the most out of their data.

Getting out of the office and away from the desk to help clients on-site can be a very rewarding experience, and is a core component of my job satisfaction.

How did you end up at Esri? What’s your career background?

I began working for Esri Australia as a graduate after completing a science degree specialising in remote sensing and GIS at the University of Queensland.

My work experience with CSIRO and the Queensland Climate Change Centre of Excellence (QCCCE) while at university highlighted the capability of applying GIS within the government and science sector.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve learned since being in this role?

The advances in satellite imagery constantly surprise me, especially within the area of ‘free imagery’. For example, the new images from the Sentinel missions at the European Space Agency are pretty outstanding and would have been very helpful during my degree!

The decentralisation of spatial analytics from the expert to the non-user via web GIS is also an interesting area that I have been paying close attention to.

Why do you enjoy conducting training sessions?

Problem solving. Students attend my courses with pre-conceived notions of what GIS is and an inbox tray full of interesting problems and conundrums that they are facing with their workflows.

Conducting project work does have its advantages, but it is refreshing and rewarding to dip into another client’s project during the difficult portion and help out as much as I can.

What’s your advice to clients considering undertaking some training?

I would recommend asking what options there are for client exclusive courses as I find that my students get the most out of these lessons due to their tailored nature.

What Esri training course would you like to undertake – and why?

Exploring ENVI to brush up on my ENVI skills from university. Spectral analysis is, in my opinion, the most powerful tool that GIS has to offer and ENVI is perfect for this.

Outside of work – what’s your idea of fun?

The mountain bike trails at Stromlo in Canberra are great but my wallet does not enjoy this as much.

We are also very lucky to have the national cultural institutions located in Canberra so there is always an exhibition or opening on.

What’s one thing people don’t know about you?

I currently have an artwork and ongoing project that I helped create with Judy Watson which is on display at the National Gallery of Australia.

At Esri Australia, we’re all about geography – so where’s your favourite destination in the world?

Behramkale, Turkey. If you find yourself in the area then it is well worth a detour for a couple of days.

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/spend-five-minutes-with-angus-hooper/feed/0annjesriaustraliaAngus HooperBuy now, train laterhttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/what-to-buy-for-the-company-that-has-everything/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/what-to-buy-for-the-company-that-has-everything/#respondTue, 31 May 2016 02:55:32 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4755It’s that time of year again, leading up to the end of financial year, when we are tallying up our costs and expenditures, and getting our budgets in order.

If you are one of the lucky ones to find a few extra gold coins left in the piggy bank, and want to make the most of your remaining funds, then we have a solution for you.

Purchase Esri Australia Learning and Services units! These units provide you with access to training and professional services as you need them – they are similar to gift vouchers where you can purchase them now and use them as you need them over the next 12 months.

Esri Australia offers Learning and Services units to all clients who are a part of our maintenance program. These units can be used for a variety of products and services including client site training, client exclusive training, scheduled training, professional services and training equipment hire.

Learning and Services units give you:

Flexibility – use units on customised courses that are designed to cater for your organisation’s needs

Ease and simplicity – redeem your units multiple times throughout the year, without the need for purchase orders or financial approval

Access – organise training through a variety of avenues, including one-on-one knowledge transfers, workshops, client site training and client exclusive training run by GIS experts

The unit cost for each item is detailed below.

Training and services available

Unit cost

Onsite course per person (maximum 10 people)

10 per day

Professional services

5 per day

Onsite knowledge transfer (2 people)

5.5 per day

Scheduled course (per person)

2 per day

Onsite training (Cliftons room rate)

5 per day

Laptop Hire (per laptop)

0.8 per week

Travel

TBA

For example, 30 units can be used in one of the following ways:

3 days of onsite training

2 days of onsite training and 2 days of professional services work

2 days of client exclusive training and 2 days of Cliftons room hire

2 days of onsite training and 2 days of knowledge transfer

4 days of professional service work, 1 x 3 day scheduled courses, 1 x 2 day scheduled courses

3 x 3 day scheduled courses and 3 x 2 day scheduled courses

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/what-to-buy-for-the-company-that-has-everything/feed/0annjesriaustraliaThoughts from the front rowhttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/19/thoughts-from-the-front-row/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/19/thoughts-from-the-front-row/#respondThu, 19 May 2016 05:13:17 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4697Over the past two days, I had the pleasure of being MC for the first two cities of the Directions Live 2016 roadshow as we kicked off the tour in Melbourne and Adelaide.

As the MC I got a front-row seat for all of the Esri Australia and guest presentations, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to jot down some thoughts on the key themes that stood out for me. So here goes …

Building a system of engagement

To deliver the highest value from your investment in GIS you need to share the information it holds with everyone in your organisation in a way that supports collaboration and self-service. John Hasthorpe described this as turning your system of record in to a system of engagement where everyone in your organisation can engage with your GIS in a decentralised way. The role of the GIS Professional is not just to manage the system of record but to empower individuals so that they can generate their own maps, spatially enable their own data, and freely share their information products with their stakeholders.

Web GIS removes your capacity bottlenecks

We are witnessing a rapid acceleration in the use of mapping and geospatial analysis across many of the organisations we work with but there is often an obstacle constraining this growth due to the capacity of the GIS team to keep up with this growing demand. Web GIS, delivered through ArcGIS Online and Portal for ArcGIS, is the enabler for self-service mapping so this accelerating demand can be met by your systems without overwhelming the GIS team.

There are many paths to geo-enlightenment

In Simon Jackson’s first talk he made the point that there is no one-size fits all approach to bringing Web GIS to your organisation. I’ll leave it to Simon to explain but combining all the options for deploying ArcGIS Online, Portal for ArcGIS and ArcGIS Server either together or separately there’s no excuse to not become geo-enlightened with Web GIS.

It’s all about apps, apps and apps

With over one hundred ready-to-use applications to connect your GIS information with your users, Alex Geer made it abundantly clear there’s rarely a need for custom development these days when you can just pick something off the shelf that will suit your needs. Once you’ve made your key geospatial datasets available through your Web GIS it’s then time to start helping your users find the right app for their needs, whether it be a web app template, a native smartphone app, an integration to your existing business system, or using a builder to customise an app without ever seeing any custom code.

And more apps just keep on coming!

The number of ready-to-use applications continues to grow at a frenetic pace. We heard from Josh Venman who showed us some of the apps that will be joining the ArcGIS Platform throughout 2016, including Drone2Map for easily converting your photos into 3D models, Workforce for ArcGIS for coordinating your field workers, and Insights for ArcGIS enabling a whole new approach to geographic analysis. Judging from the reaction of the delegates in Melbourne and Adelaide this week, these are all very keenly anticipated apps that are going to be in high demand.

There was so much more than this packed into each day, but for me these points stood out as key for putting your organisation on the path to geo-enlightenment!

Directions LIVE is currently travelling around the country until the end of May. If you haven’t registered for your local event, visit the Esri Australia website now.

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/05/19/thoughts-from-the-front-row/feed/0Directions LIVE Banner_BloggarycjohnsonMore technology, more ideas, more connectionshttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/more-technology-more-ideas-more-connections/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/more-technology-more-ideas-more-connections/#respondFri, 22 Apr 2016 00:58:30 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4682Following the conclusion of our ArcGIS seminar series each year, we immediately look to the future and at ways we can improve the roadshow. How do we continue to make Directions LIVE better for our user community, and give past attendees another reason to return?

We make our changes based on the feedback we receive, and this year that has led us to expand the event program even further, with more content across the board.

In 2016 you will gain greater technical insight into the latest ArcGIS platform improvements. We will show you how Web GIS is evolving and transforming the way organisations share information, and demonstrate how 3D and real-time data can revolutionise your workflows.

Our tips and tricks sessions have also been extended – providing a greater opportunity to learn about the benefits of organisational GIS portals and how cutting-edge cartography can help you convey a clearer message when communicating with stakeholders and clients.

Every city will feature at least two user presentation from some true industry leaders, with organisations presenting this year including IBM, Treasury Wine Estates, Queensland Urban Utilities and VicRoads.

We are also introducing a new addition to the ArcLab experience – ArcSoapbox. This platform provides a place for short technical presentations (aka lightning talks), guaranteed to keep you stimulated during the breaks.

Whether you’re an experienced ArcGIS user or have only just started taking advantage of the platform, you’ll get a lot out of Directions LIVE. Please join us at your local event and learn ways you can see and do more with your data.

If you haven’t yet registered for Directions LIVE 2016, you can secure your seat by visiting esriaustralia.com.au. The free event travels to seven cities around the country from 17 – 31 May.

Meet Nathaniel Meyer – one of Esri Australia’s senior consultants – and a specialist in ArcGIS for Desktop and geodatabases. To help you get to know Nathaniel better, he spent five minutes in the hot seat answering our questions.

EA:Tell us about your role as a senior consultant/trainer at Esri Australia – what are you responsible for?NM: I’m a member of the training team where I am responsible for developing new eLearning content and mentoring our extended training family. I am also responsible for delivering the geodatabase and desktop courses.

EA: What do you love most about your job?NM: The opportunity to constantly learn new things, working within a team of passionate GIS professionals, and being able to get out and about to meet clients and help them improve their GIS skills.

EA: How did you end up at Esri? What’s your career background?NM: After graduating from the University of Western Sydney with a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in information systems, I pursued my interest in relational database management systems and GIS by working in a variety of roles. In 2013, I joined Esri Australia as part of the Professional Services team.

EA: What’s the coolest thing you’ve learned since being in this role?NM: For me, having a background in databases, learning how the underlying tables and triggers work in a multiuser geodatabase was pretty cool. This has enabled me to leverage my information systems knowledge and apply it in a GIS context.

EA: Why do you enjoy conducting training sessions?NM: I enjoy imparting my knowledge and assisting people. It is also a great opportunity to hear how others use GIS, and I often find myself learning a new thing or two from clients as well.

EA: What’s your advice to clients considering undertaking some training?NM: Consider your training course objectives and determine how these relate to your work. Have some real-world projects in mind so you can connect the course content to your own practical examples, and if possible bring along your own data to work with.

EA: What Esri training course would you like to undertake – and why?NM: I would have to say Exploring ENVI is one training course I would like complete. I am passionate about technology and interested in the analysis capabilities using hyperspectral imaging.

EA: Outside of work – what’s your idea of fun?NM: Motorcycles are my big passion. I enjoy riding a variety of bikes – both on the road and track – as well as repairing and customising them. I am also a fan of live music and appreciate good whisky or pale ale.

EA: What’s one thing people don’t know about you?NM: I can MIG weld and have a titanium nail holding my left leg together. That’s two!

EA: At Esri Australia – we’re all about geography, so where’s your favourite destination in the world?NM: Without a doubt Vancouver, BC. Not just because I was born there, but it’s a beautiful city where the mountains meet the sea. There’s also plenty of fantastic snow skiing, and it’s home to most of my extended family, as well as my favourite hockey team.

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/02/24/meet-the-team-nathaniel-meyer/feed/0dmulligan310Nathaniel Meyer_ImageMaking technical training count – customised learning and capitalising on momentumhttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/making-technical-training-count-customised-learning-and-capitalising-on-momentum/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/making-technical-training-count-customised-learning-and-capitalising-on-momentum/#respondWed, 17 Feb 2016 23:24:22 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4672Since joining the Esri Australia training team, I have had the privilege of working with many of our largest and longest standing clients, in addition to new clients migrating from other GIS technologies, or embracing location analytics for the first time.

The common thread here though is that regardless of an organisation’s experience with location, every client I speak to is eager to embrace enterprise-wide change – a point that particularly rings true when organisations strengthen their software deployment with Esri Australia technical training.

During the software introduction phase, I work with clients to develop customised GIS training – looking at how ArcGIS technology will be used within their organisation, and tailoring content to meet their particular business needs.

This assists every member of an organisation – from those in geo-centric or geo-enabled roles (e.g. GIS analysts, asset managers) to administrative and technical staff, as well as managers and executives. And because clients have buy-in during the training development phase, the content provided is ‘fit-for-purpose’, rather than simply being ‘out-of-the-box’.

Going a step further, I have also acted as a ‘floor walker’ for various organisations – spending time with staff following a training course to help them take advantage of their new skills and put their freshly acquired knowledge into action.

Capitalising on the momentum created by customised training, I work with staff to ensure they maximise the capabilities of ArcGIS:

Demonstrating Esri best practice when using sensitive and real-time data

Developing and documenting recommended ArcGIS operating procedures

Empowering non-GIS staff to use the ArcGIS platform for tasks beyond production

Whether your organisation is new to the ArcGIS platform, or you’re looking to upgrade your software – customised training with an Esri Australia technical adviser will guarantee your return on investment.

And it’s this enterprise-wide growth which is very rewarding to be a part of.

Professionally configured and managed ArcGIS deployment will ensure your organisation unlocks the unlimited power of geography.

Jack

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/making-technical-training-count-customised-learning-and-capitalising-on-momentum/feed/0jackbowreyWhen a map isn’t the answerhttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/when-a-map-isnt-the-answer-2/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/when-a-map-isnt-the-answer-2/#commentsMon, 18 Jan 2016 02:25:03 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4536Maps are everywhere. We have them in our cars and our phones and on websites from AirBnB to Woolworths to our health insurer.

I love maps. They’re beautiful. They can help reveal new patterns and relationships in data that couldn’t be discovered in any other way and they help us find the way to that elusive new secret whiskey bar.

But the map isn’t always the right tool to help you understand what’s around you.

Sometimes we’re too map-centric. Sometimes we need to switch to a more location-centric view of the world.

Example static “map-centric” view.

My favourite example of this is the oh-so-common garbage collection map showing what day of the week by bins get emptied. I go to my local council’s website on my smartphone to find out if my green-waste is going to be collected this week or next and I’m presented with a map of the local government boundary coloured and hatched in various shades and styles. From there I zoom and pan around to find my street. Great! I’ve discovered I’m an area coloured mauve with some black diagonal hatching.

Next step – the legend. Mauve tells me my bins are emptied on Mondays and the hatching tells me I’m collected on “odd weeks”. No idea what that means but not to worry there’s a link to a PDF calendar that (after panning and zooming around a bit) shows me that it’s week 49. Odd-week! It’s green bin day today! Hoorah!

This is what I refer to as the “map-centric” experience. I was presented with garbage collection information about my whole council area. Without wanting to be rude to my fellow residents I can honestly say I don’t care what day the bins are emptied on the other side of the LGA or even in the next street.

This map-centric view is great for printed static material pushed into residents’ letterboxes but we can do better for online viewing.

I’m interested in my house, my street, my block. What’s relevant to me starts with me. That’s where the “location-centric” approach works well. Let’s start with the user. Start with an important location (the user’s address). Show me what’s relevant to me.

Rather than “location-centric” you might even call it the “ego-centric” view as it’s all about me!

A location-centric approach takes your geospatial data and presents it in a highly relevant way by understanding what locations the user is going to be interested in.

In the example of the garbage collection map, let’s start with a simple question. “What’s your address?” Try and use the browser location to derive or narrow down the address. If I’ve been on the site before, remember my address or my area of interest between visits using cookies.

With this simple step I am immediately presented with “Your next bin day is Wednesday 27th January”. No map. No exploration. No superfluous data.

A great example of location centricity is the simple taxi booking app. I’m presented with three choices for selecting my pick-up location – where I am now, where I have been in the past, or through address input or map navigation. The app assumes that I will most likely want to book a taxi from my current location or one of the places I have booked from before. It doesn’t start by displaying a map of Australia and asking me to find my pick-up point.

Here’s a comparison showing some of the key differences between “map-centric” and “location-centric” applications.

Map-Centric

Location-Centric

Starts with data

Starts with purpose

Same view for every user

Tailored for the user

User must explore the data to find answers

Insight presented immediately

Multiple layers becomes confusing

Easy to include multiple themes

Hard to deliver good mobile experience

Simple mobile experience

Of course, being location-centric doesn’t mean there’s no place for a map. A location-centric approach can work great in combination with a map. If I want to go to the Library and then to the Dog Park it will be a lot easier to choose the best options from a map rather than seeing two lists of the closest three facilities. If I want to understand how planning developments will affect me proximity is important and the map helps me understand how I’m impacted.

Even with the map we need to start with the user. It all starts with the question of “Why is the user here today and what do they want to discover?” Here are some tips for a location-centric approach to sharing your information:

Clearly understand the purpose of an application.

Ask yourself, does a map make it harder or easier for the user to achieve their purpose?

Use the user’s current location to tailor the information delivery.

Present the user with answers – not data.

Think about why users will come to your application.

One size does not fit all. Your application needs to be designed to match its purpose.

So the next time you’re asked to publish a map. Ask yourself if a map is the answer or if you can achieve a better user experience by hiding the map and presenting the user with answers instead.

GJ

—-

PS I included the map from my LGA for example purposes and I do note that their website says, “From early 2016 you will be able to search for the bin collections for your address on Council’s website and print out a personalised waste collection calendar for the year.”

]]>https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/when-a-map-isnt-the-answer-2/feed/2binsgarycjohnsonWaste Collection MapLaunch a location platform that takes offhttps://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/launch-a-location-platform-that-takes-off/
https://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/launch-a-location-platform-that-takes-off/#respondSun, 10 Jan 2016 22:29:33 +0000http://esriaustralia.wordpress.com/?p=4496As we begin a new year, are you thinking of how to communicate the benefits of using location information to get GIS to really take off in your organisation? Have you got your ArcGIS Organisational account ready to go? If so, a series of new publications are now available to help you get the most from your ArcGIS platform.

The Launch Guide shows you how to prepare for and begin using location information. It provides the steps to help launch a location platform for your organisation and a strategy for successfully adopting location technology within your organisation. It contains:

A strategy for planning, testing, and rolling out a location platform

Examples, case studies, and quotes from customers who have implemented the location platform

Checklists, templates, and communication examples to help move an implementation forward

Resources for self-help, training and contact information for assistance

As you introduce members of your organisation to your location platform, it’s important to properly guide individuals and teams in a way that is easy, fun, valuable and rewarding.

The Change Management Kit is a collection of activities and promotional tools that can be used to engage and excite members of your organisation during the implementation of your location platform. It contains: